Trixie
she/her, Icelandic woman in Sweden, lesbian in a relationship
(FROM AN INTERVIEW CONDUCTED OVER EMAIL AND ZOOM IN 2020)
photo credit: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
PART 1:
Once, in Iceland, a flock of ravens settled on my house. Seventy black ravens with one white raven between them. They were very defensive about the white one. When I accidentally disturbed them, they all made sure the white one was in the middle. That’s the trick, isn’t it. In nature, being different means you get protected because you’re different.
*
Cis women take being a woman for granted. Many define their very existence from having a pussy and growing up in a feminine role. We women who are born in the wrong body can develop and evolve our womanhood in a much wider and deeper sense. Being a woman isn’t just about the pussy, it’s also about who you are.
*
Music has always been hugely influential to me. She has surrounded my existence—a shelter and a warm embrace. I hear music continually in my head, and I always have. If I don’t listen to music every day, I feel empty and starved. I’m rediscovering Santana. Miles Davis is a feast fit for queens. NZ drum and bass makes me smile all day—like Concorde Dawn. Los Hermanos Flores are brilliant—I’ve been diving into Salvadoran cumbia quite a lot. I listen to internet radio from around the world. A few of my favorites are ABC 100.1 FM from El Salvador, Ibiza Global Radio from Spain, Trance Athene, Ambient Sleeping Pill and SomaFM Groove Salad from the US.
*
I’m an ordinary woman, a mom, a lover, and an amiga of many women. I’m a social worker. Only a handful of people in Sweden know I’m trans—no one at work. I make no effort in passing, I am simply me. I am well aware of my privilege of being born in a feminine body, having long hair and a face which hetero men and lesbians both adore and worship.
To reveal I’m trans (which is more or less compulsory for trans people to do in Sweden) would mean being kicked out of society. It would mean the loss of privileges I need. As much as I enjoy this interview, I’m aware it will most likely become my undoing. But I am unwilling to back out because I am adamant in demanding my place—that of a woman living freely.
*
In Sweden, trans representation is horrible. The media depicts us as a separate race, not even human. Swedes look at us with a zoologist’s curiosity. The feminists are strongly against us, as they cling to their belief in biological sex. Trans healthcare in Sweden spreads the mindset that being trans is a sickness. Some years ago, a non-binary person was denied a transition. A woman was denied a transition because she was too fat. I survived my own transition, but it caused me considerable damage: multiple suicide attempts, copious alcohol consumption, and scars from self harm. I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy. I’ve made it my business to heal and embrace the fact that I am now fully born, that life is beautiful.
*
I learned how to raise my son from wolves and lions. My role was to keep my offspring safe and close until he was ready to walk this planet on his own. And oh, did he excel in everything. Hugs and cuddling go further in human mental development than most people believe—they mean the security that offspring need. Most people I speak to say they didn’t receive that from their parents, and they all have insecurity. My son is perfect. He has none of the common insecurity. He knows exactly that mom is there and will defend him with her life. Somehow, physical closeness became a taboo in human society. Why? It’s all about the invention of money as the means of survival.
*
I resist defining utopia. I simply focus on improving my own life, day by day. Is it because I’m older and have finished my transition, or is it entirely something else? When I was younger, I dreamed a lot about a better society, and I was active in politics. What happened? Why don’t I dream?
I think it has a lot to do with the hardships I’ve endured in Sweden, the model society of the Western world. In Sweden, I experienced intolerance, inequality, poverty, apathy, extreme prejudice and racism, and endless lies. My dreams have been reduced to not starving and keeping my job. What I thought would be utopia proved to be a nightmarish tyranny, a broken carcass. My goal is to leave Sweden as soon as I can.
*
Capitalism also leaves little room for dreams, when people hold three jobs and barely survive each month, while privileged white people basically live off of them. As long as this imbalance exists, I doubt that dreams are actually for the majority of the human population.
The fundamental problem of today’s world is that capitalistic democracy doesn’t share space with anyone. Its imperial tendencies include the constant need to expand, and to eradicate other ways of living.
*
Any utopia dreamed up by those in power is going to end up privileging their followers, while we outcasts in the gutter look towards the stars and bide our time. Examples of this don’t just include the Soviet Union, but the US as well. And in the last century, Sweden compulsorily sterilized twenty-thousand people as part of an attempt to create the perfect white society.
If we aren’t all given equal footing from birth, something is wrong with society, not us.
*
For now, utopia is a home for me and my loved one, a soft bed, work for both of us, food on the table, clothing to wear, proper healthcare, equality in society of harmonious diversity, and streets of colorful people in a city that never sleeps. A good city should be welcoming and green with nature. For now, my utopia is a world where all women are acknowledged simply as women. A world without white supremacy. A world where people can dream.
*
PART 2:
I came out very late. But I've always known who I am. I grew up on an island that was very backwards: “transgender” didn’t even exist in the Icelandic dictionary. The first openly trans woman in Iceland was 1996 if I remember correctly. I came out in 2014, and soon after, I decided to transition. Because I wasn’t living, just existing.
Living in Sweden, I had two options, go via public health care and wait nine months for a first interview, or pay out of my own pocket to start sooner, which I decided to do.
The psychiatrist was extremely transphobic. She told me I could never be a woman. She spent a long time talking about the dangers of transition and telling me it would probably make me commit suicide. I cried a lot on the streets that night.
I contacted a trans clinic. After a nine month waiting time, I saw a psychiatrist who was even more hateful than phobic. The interview was 140 minutes long. I heard nothing after. I waited six months for the next interview, and that interview was meaningless. I sensed that the psychiatrist was evaluating me according to his stereotype of a woman. So I played nice. I said what he wanted me to say. It wasn’t enough. The next interview was six months later, another 140 minute session and half the time we were talking about the weather. He scratched his balls in front of me. It was humiliating.
Before I started this process, I read a lot about what was going on in Sweden, and I started calling political representatives, asking “what is the situation in Sweden when it comes to trans people?” Apart from the Socialist party, they were all apathetic or downright hostile. I got an email from the Sweden Democrats comparing LGBTQ people to viruses.
While I waited for my next interview, I kept calling government agencies, asking them about my rights. Why things are like they are. I talked to a legal firm that supports LGBTQ people, and even they had absolute apathy towards trans people. I was asked, “why the hell are you even bothering to transition if you have so many questions?”
At the same time, I wrote to newspapers, asking if they’d be interested in picking up this story. They either ignored me or said “we are not interested in this subject matter.”
And the other trans women I talked to were so completely broken, or else completely indifferent.
Then I had a different evaluation, with a psychologist, who actually had a mild interest in my wellbeing. I wanted to start hormones. The psychologist said they needed to know me better, and denied my request for hormones.
My next appointment got cancelled, rescheduled, delayed. I got a call after another half year of silence telling me that my appointment was canceled until further notice. I had to put up a fight to keep that appointment time, and when I showed up the doctors and psychiatrists were angry at me for making such a fuss.
I had to wait nine or ten months for another session. Then they cancelled that. When I asked them why, they said there were other patients more important than me.
That crushed me completely. My dysphoria was getting worse and worse and worse. I broke down and had my first of several suicide attempts. I tried to get help at a mental health clinic and they weren’t interested at all in hearing my story. Instead, they were pissy about trying to get me out. They also said they had more important patients than me.
I didn’t give up. I went all the way to the top official in psychiatric health care in my province. I cried my eyes out in a phone call with her. And three days later I got a letter from the trans clinic that I was welcome to come.
The trans clinic had two psychiatrists with 15% of their hours used for 500 patients. The system is completely broken. There isn’t enough time and there aren’t enough resources for everyone.
But I got to start on hormones. Things got a lot better, but my dysphoria didn’t go away. I needed surgery. Which meant more evaluations. A legal gender change. A doctor lied to me about the wait time for surgery—it wasn’t three months, it was eighteen—and that was before all the appointments I needed for surgery also kept getting pushed back and cancelled. I was drinking copious amounts of alcohol to survive. I had five consecutive suicide attempts in one summer.
I called a government minister’s office and wanted to understand why there wasn’t more done for trans people in Sweden, and he basically said that we weren't even important enough to be considered.
I gave up. After I got my surgery, I stopped my activism completely. Swedish society was hell bent on killing me. They almost succeeded, but not quite. I’m back now, with a vengeance. I live, and I am happy.
I try to help younger trans women and lesbians, but I feel no need to be part of the community, because any minority community will always be a reflection of its society. But I do talk to them about their problems. Mostly, I listen. Sometimes, the sentence “I know how you feel” is all that is needed. I am very protective of young people. They are the future.
